In 2014, Billy Bob Thornton told Entertainment Weekly that the rumors of his original cut being somewhere in between 3 to 4h long were incorrect, but that his cut was 2:42h. He also mentioned that he still is in possession of his original version.
Jesse Plemons, who was cast as the younger version of John Grady Cole, didn't know all his scenes had been removed from the final cut until he actually saw the film with friends and family.
Some attempts have been made to release a director's cut DVD, but arrangements cannot be reached with the composer of the film's music, Daniel Lanois. As part of the re-cut, Harvey Weinstein scrapped the original score and hired Marty Stuart. Lanois felt insulted, and has steadfastly refused to license his score (which, unusually, he owns) to any release of the film.
Cormac McCarthy visited the set during the making of the film. The author apparently spent little time fraternizing with the main cast and crew. He instead spent much of his visit discussing firearms with the prop master.
An assembly cut, which ran around 3 hours and 40 minutes, was shown to producers before the final edit was finished. They were told they were viewing an unfinished movie and not to make judgments. Billy Bob Thornton was still working on his final edit, but the studio wanted to see something. Thornton agreed to it, but regrets it to this day. Former Miramax marketing head Dennis Rice had this to say: "It was the most self-indulgent director's cut I'd ever seen. It was like torture to watch that movie." Thornton's eventual edit ran around 2hrs 42m. Matt Damon and others that saw this final version thought it was a masterpiece. Wanting it even shorter, the studio took it away from Thornton, and cut to it's final length of 1hr 56m. They also replaced a beautiful haunting music score by legendary music producer Daniel Lanois with a soundtrack by Marty Stewart. It broke everyone's heart that had put so much love into the project. Thornton's version has never been seen or released to the public.